'Oh! about six months ago—the same time as I saw you before.'
'Well! and the way your poor mother dotes on you—her only boy! Why do people think it is a blessing to have children? Very often it seems one of the bitter pleasures of life.'
'Well, you see, if people didn't think things were a little better than they are, the world wouldn't gee up at all. And doesn't it say even in the Bible that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife? Then how much more will he do it for the girl who doesn't want to be his wife!'
'Ted, your logic is irresistible.'
'You may call it logic if you like—but it's true.'
'Which logic seldom is; but then it's correct, and you can so seldom combine the two,' said Stella in the light, mocking tone which came to her so readily; 'I declare I've nearly emptied my teapot! It is fatal to begin to drink on a day like this.'
'Yes; the more you drink, the more you want to—that's the mischief of it,' said the young man, with a gloomier expression than the occasion seemed to call for.
'By Jove! I nearly forgot I had this for you, Stella,' he said presently, taking a small parcel out of his breast coat-pocket, sealed and addressed as it had come by post. 'You're always interested about the niggers. Myers, my book-keeper, is a great dab at finding things out about them. By the way, he corresponds with your old friend, Dr. Stein. Well, some time ago Myers fossicked out about a very rum sort of shoe that the blacks use on particular occasions. I told him to get me one if he could, and when I got to the club last night I found this waiting for me. Oh, it's over three weeks since I left Strathhaye; I've been in Melbourne and other places.'
'Let me open it!' cried Stella. 'I love unfastening an unknown parcel; it is one of the simple pleasures of life that never palls. Oh, Ted, what a cunning, gruesome-looking sort of thing!' she said, as the shoe was revealed to view.
It was light, and compressible into a very small compass. The sole was composed of emu feathers, matted together with a dull red coagulated substance. The upper part was a sort of network of small plaited strands crossed and recrossed. This curious shoe was extremely crude in shape, being exactly alike at both ends.